The Undergraduate Concentration
Why American Civilization?
American Civilization is the ultimate liberal arts degree. If you came to Brown for the freedom to choose your courses, explore new methodologies, better understand the world, and shape your own education, AmCiv offers the perfect concentration in which to meet those goals. The American Civilization department gives students a framework and context into which to fit courses while working with AmCiv faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates and those from other departments and Centers.
Concentrators in American Civilization study the diverse cultures, groups, and experiences that make up American life. Unlike other departments, which focus on a single discipline, American Civilization is interdisciplinary, encouraging its concentrators to explore the culture and history of the United States using approaches and methods of several different disciplines. American Civilization started out as a combination of English and history; today scholars in the field draw on approaches from the humanities, the social sciences, the fine arts, and the sciences. By making connections across traditional disciplinary boundaries and by developing new perspectives on American life, concentrators achieve a more comprehensive understanding than would be possible within the limits of a single discipline.
In addition, the faculty and students in American Civilization are interested in the role of the United States in the world. We encourage students to study abroad and learn how other peoples view this country. Those students who study only at Brown, can gain this understanding through a number of courses in the department and across the University which look at the United States in a transnational perspective. Finally, the Department’s program in public humanities rethinks how universities and cultural organizations can share their work with wider audiences, in a range of settings from museums to Web sites.
A concentration in American Civilization combines the flexibility to explore special areas of interest with support, guidance and structure. Students get an in-depth understanding of a fascinating and important subject, the United States of America. Please feel free to explore the rest of the web site and come in and talk to the Concentration Advisor to learn more.
Answers from Current Students
I'm interested in studying past and contemporary American history through the methodologies of American Civilization. I enjoy interpreting history though the lenses of race, class, and gender and through primary sources of popular culture such as songbooks, movies, and oral history.
I enjoy approaching my internalized culture externally, applying a critical eye to things that are automatic, assumed. Also, the discipline allows me to stretch a range of mental muscles, from sociological thought to literary criticism to political theory.
Led by a phenomenal squadron of professors, the AmCiv department at Brown has given me insight into American culture, history and politics as well as the tools to make my own analyses. As my old Yiddish grandmother would say 'What's not to like?'"
American Civilization provided several opportunities to pursue independent research. I served as an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistant to one professor, getting paid for a summer and one semester to do research that led to a website. Now I'm writing an honors thesis on a subject that has long interested me.
I chose to concentrate in American Civilization because I am interested in context. I wanted to study American history, literature, and culture, but not to learn about each one in a vacuum; what I find fascinating is the study of how those things intertwine, and the longer I've been in the Department the more I certain I am of each field's relation to each other.
My AmCiv concentration was fulfilling and engaging. It validated my sense that studying popular culture was not a silly, trivial, or unscholarly exercise but a particularly apt way to gain insight into the ideas and practices of an age. My Brown education was largely split between learning “intellectual history” with “high” cultural figures like Freud or Nietszche and studying “popular culture” like bare-knuckle boxing . . . but to me it always felt like the same thing.
I chose AmCiv because I really wanted to study culture. I didn't want to study only cultural theory, which is what MCM seemed to offer, and I didn't want to study only cultural history, which I didn't even really notice the history department offering. AmCiv let me learn about cultural studies, or theories of culture, in conjunction with practical, historical, and modern day examples in which those theories play out. It allowed me to do this both because most Am. Civ. classes combined these two approaches, and also because the flexibility of the concentration itself allowed me to take all the MCM or History courses - or Philosophy or English or Music courses - that I felt were relevant to putting together the kind of complete, in-depth picture of culture I was looking for. I don't think any other concentration is as interdisciplinary in its approach and I suspect it is just that characteristic that draws most AmCiv concentrators to the department.
I have been at the University of Virginia law school for a little over a month and have been working extremely hard. Law students are very different from AmCiv students. To counter that, I have begun spending time with English grad students. I figure that if I spend half my time with people who talk about nothing but government, and half my time with people who talk about nothing but Derrida and pals, then it will average out into a perfect recreation of the AmCiv experience.
I'm currently working at a crazy reality tv/documentary production company, World of Wonder, in Hollywood. The AmCiv dept always allowed me to study my favorite topic of race in pop culture, where nothing was too small, too material or too irrelevant to research about American culture. If I can spend four years learning about American pop culture, why can't I actually do something in (and about) it? So here I am.
After teaching for a year in an independent school, I got into Northwestern's Master of Science in Education program and started over the summer. By June I'll have a masters degree and a teaching certificate to teach elementary school to Illinois children. Lucky them. : ) AmCiv was the perfect intersection of my interests - American history and literature. The concentration itself provided the freedom to create a course of study that explored American history, culture, and society in a way that was meaningful to me. As a future teacher, I'm also thankful that I have a strong background in American studies, both history and literature, that put as much emphasis on multicultural voices and struggles as it did on traditional American narratives.
Possible Careers
A degree in American Civilization requires a great deal of independence and imagination, excellent communication skills, and the ability to bring together disparate philosophical and methodological approaches. Such qualities are attractive to employers in many fields; American Civilization concentrators have found employment in journalism, publishing, and business, as well as in the non-profit sector working in education, community arts programs, labor union organizing, and social welfare programs among other institutions. Others have entered graduate programs in law, theater studies, music, ethnic studies, American Studies, English, and history.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do other colleges have Departments of American Civilization?
The interdisciplinary field of American Studies is large and growing. There is a national organization, the American Studies Association, founded in 1951 with 140 institutional members and over 6,000 individual members. The Brown American Civilization program was founded in 1945 (as a graduate program) and took a name that other programs at the time also used to make a claim about the worth of studying the American experience. Other schools call their Departments either American Civilization, American Studies, or American Cultures but all focus on an interdisciplinary exploration of the United States.
What kind of training do faculty have to teach in an interdisciplinary department like American Civilization?
Some of the faculty have Ph.D.'s (and undergraduate majors) in American Studies, while others have degrees in other interdisciplinary fields like Ethnic Studies, and most have degrees in traditional disciplinary programs like history, sociology, and English.
What is the role of the graduate program in the Department?
Brown's graduate program in American Civilization, particularly its Ph.D. program, is one of the top five in the country. Our graduates teach in a range of programs and have written some of the most important books in American Studies (see the Graduate Alumni Section of this website). While at Brown, graduate students serve as teaching assistants, often leading discussion sections, and most also teach a self-designed, writing course (numbered AMCV0190) for freshman and sophomores. These AMCV0190 courses are among the most popular in the department because they put undergraduates in touch with cutting edge scholarship and enthusiastic teachers.
Should I double concentrate?
Lots of students choose to double concentrate. That said, we have two things to say against it. Because of the freedom to have courses outside the AmCiv Department count for concentration credit, some AmCiv students don't feel the need to double concentrate. Also, Brown students cherish the lack of requirements in the Open Curriculum and double concentrations involve a LOT of requirements. If you do want to double concentrate, several concentrations work well with AmCiv, including education, visual art, and international relations.
Who should write an honors thesis?
Honors theses aren't for everyone. But, if one or more of the following describes you, it's probably a good choice:
- You love independent work
- You are considering graduate school in the humanities or social sciences
- You don't mind giving up three courses
- You have a subject you are VERY interested in exploring
Shall I study abroad?
We think it's really interesting to understand how others think about the United States. Study abroad is one way to explore the role that the U.S. plays in the world. You can take courses about the U.S. and see how the country is taught about in universities around the world. Students considering study abroad should consult with the Concentration Advisor before they leave to discuss how to transfer course credit.
How do I get a letter of recommendation?
AmCiv faculty are glad to write letters of recommendation. In a best case scenario, we need to know about the letters three weeks in advance. Students should provide the following:
- Recommendation form, if needed
- Address to which to send completed recommendation
- List of courses you've taken with the professor
- Copy of your transcript (no need for an “official” transcript)
- Copies of papers you wrote for class
- Copy of your application essay